Soft toy chicken design revisions

Continuing with my series of furry animal dolls, I added a soft toy chicken to the mix.Roy my 2nd chicken doll, a rooster, he would promptly correct you had he been given a squeak toy inside his belly.

Roy the rooster, made entirely of recycled tee shirt, was difficult to make. The volume easily got blown out of proportion. The sharp beak easily made too bulbous. I wasn’t’ confident this would work on a scale less than half of the original.

I basically shrank Roy’s front face pattern to a smaller size. The head shape is different as this joins at the back of the head, instead of the side for the bigger chicken.

The beak is the way to big, and too much fabric is collected at the seam allowance inside the beak. There is just way too much cloth for this size.

Then I adjusted the pattern. Simplified it to a non-open beak, but maintained the 3 dimensionality. I could have just cut 2 pieces of a profile, and sew it down the middle, and increase bulk by stuffing alone. But that’s not quite my style. I don’t settle for the obvious (and why can’t I? You tell me?)

I was oookay with the shape in the front facing look, but not happy with the back of the head or the overall shape. It needs to be rounder.

I dived right into using the pink range of fabrics I’ve been working on.